ONE NORMAL LIFE / TWO EXTRAORDINARY LIVES

CHAPTER 177 - IN THE BEGINNING


NOVEMBER 21, 2009
FRIDAY
10:30AM

Mrs. Greeves sighed, looking up the stairs with a scowl on her face. Mr. Giles had said his guest would likely be sleeping in, but this was ridiculous. The food she’d been keeping on warm in the oven was surely becoming inedible after three hours despite it being on low, and she didn’t have time to make a fresh breakfast before returning to make Mr. Giles’ midday meal as well. She’d put off her vacuuming hoping Mr. Lazybones would get up, but it seemed that wasn’t about to happen anytime soon.

Nervously, she ventured another look at the clock in the hallway. Only one hour to go, before picking up her three-year-old granddaughter from preschool, (a child she was now raising for her missing, drug addicted daughter ) another fifteen minutes to drop her to the babysitter’s, then another half-hour to get back here to make dinner.

“The hell with his sleep,” she said, “People have jobs to go about.” When was the last time she’d gotten a good night’s sleep anytime in the past year? Not at all! What with the responsibility of her granddaughter, and the heartache of not knowing what had become of her own daughter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

11:00AM

“Sex on the Beach? Coming right up,” William said, pouring the ingredients into the blender. Vodka, peach schnapps, cranberry, orange, and pineapple juices, ice...

“Huh?”

Disoriented, William awoke to the persistent, loud hum of a machine. For a moment, he thought he was still at Ipso Facto, Too.

Looking around him, he remembered then where he was - England, in the home of Mr. Giles, and the noise he now identified as a vacuum cleaner. Something was twisted around his hand, and he pulled it loose. It was Elizabeth’s camisole.

He reached over and took the watch fob off of the nightstand and flipped it open. It was 3:00am in Julian. Instantly, regret overtook him as he thought about being there with her, within the warmth of her arms...

No.

He’d come here for a reason, to find out about his past, and to try to find a way to go on with his future, their future.

The answer to the questions Mr. Giles posed; so hard to come by last night as he stared down at the blank journal pages, now streamed rapidly into his consciousness.

“Sleep peacefully, luv,” he whispered, as he got up and went over to the table.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1:00PM

“Ah, William, there you are,” Giles said, looking into the study.

“Afternoon,” William said, closing the book he’d been reading.
“I hope you don’t mind my being in here.”

Giles shook his head. The things that he wouldn’t want William to stumble onto, at this point, had been secured away in his locked file cabinet.

“What do you say we have some dinner?” he asked.

“I’m not sure I’m hungry, but I’ll accompany you. I’m afraid I slept in much longer than I normally would, so I had a late breakfast. I’m afraid Mrs. Greeves wasn’t very happy with me.”

Giles smiled, “Don’t pay her any mind, William. She’s a tough old bird, but she’s a good person. Gives me a hard time quite regularly, and I pay her salary!”

William waited for Giles in the dining room, while he washed up.

“Will you be having your dinner then, Mr. Worthington?”

“I don’t think I’ll...”

“Just bring him a plate,” Giles said, walking in, “that way William can have something if he changes his mind, alright, Emily?”

“Whatever you say, Mr. Giles,” she said, going back into the kitchen.

Mrs. Greeves returned with a plate and bowl, slightly banging them down.
Next, she carried in a large tureen, containing the same stew William recognized as the one he’d eaten yesterday. She also brought a small roast to the table.

After serving Giles, she turned toward William, arching her eyebrow in question. He nodded, and she served him as well.

“Thank you,” he told her. She only grunted in response.

“I’m afraid the roast may still be a bit pink, Mr. Giles. I couldn’t get it into the oven as early as I wanted, as someone still had their breakfast waiting for them,” she said, pointedly glancing over at William.

“I’m sure it will be fine. These things happen,” Giles said, easily. He dare not suggest to her, that she might just as easily have cooked something on the stovetop. He did that recently, and she had threatened to quit if he was unpleased with the way she ran her kitchen. Wisely, he refrained.

“Do you need anything else?” Mrs. Greeves asked.

“No, that will do.”

“Very well,” she said curtly, departing.

William watched until the door swung closed between the dining room and kitchen, before speaking. “I don’t think she cares much for me.”

“It’s not that,” Giles said, lowering his voice. “This past year Mrs. Greeves has been charged with the care of her three-year-old grandchild, because her daughter was stripped of her parental rights due to her drug use and neglecting the child. Now, she’s gone missing, as well.”

“God!”

“Needless to say, Emily has been a bit less than pleasant, if you will. Who wouldn’t be?”

William nodded.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2:30PM

Giles had suggested that William accompany him back to the Council, and he’d readily accepted. He'd been unimpressed when they entered a rather small, two-story building on a small street near the river, but he'd been fooled. As they said, looks can be deceiving. Underneath, and at least five times as large as the building appeared from the street, was a vast underground. Five sublevels to be exact, where the real workings of the Council lie.

The first sublevel was devoted to the multi-linguistic schooling of the slayers. Giles explained this was both in human, and demon languages. The second sublevel held was devoted to regular classes. The third level was for training; everything from sparring to gymnastics, karate to hand-to-hand was studied and practiced in these rooms. The fourth sublevel held the dormitories for those slayers who had no other place to live when they were in London attending ‘Slayer School.’ There were only a couple of students around today. Giles explained they only had a half-day’s classes on Fridays, and those that lived close enough, went home. The others usually looked for some weekend’s entertainment, while those that were still here would be on patrol for the evening.

“Is there a lot of...demon activity?”

“Enough to keep us on our toes, but nothing extraordinary; for now.”

Lastly, the fifth sublevel, accessible only by Giles, or one of the other watchers, was the library. William let out a low whistle when the elevator door slid open onto the vast room, filled with at least a couple of thousand volumes.

“You should’ve seen the original Council’s library. It was three times as large as this,” Giles remarked.

“What happened?”

“The First destroyed it back in 2003, before the final battle. The whole building, and everyone in it was blown up.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I believe it was around the same time that The First’s Bringers kidnapped you from Buffy’s house.”

William stopped short outside the elevator, as he tried to recall what he’d been told about that. The night the truth had finally come out, Elizabeth had tried to fill him in on everything he’d been, everything that had happened, but all the bits and pieces of information he’d been told just bled into one another.

“Of course, you don’t remember that, do you?” Giles asked.

William shook his head; “No, I don’t. What did the First want with me?”

Giles started to answer then thought better of it. “Why don’t we just continue our tour for now? We can talk about that, and all your other questions later tonight, once we’re home.”

“Okay,” William agreed, though the way Mr. Giles had avoided his eyes filled him with a sense of dread.

“I understand from Wesley that you know Latin and Greek. He seemed quite impressed.”

“I think he gives me more credit than I deserve,” William replied modestly.

“Perhaps. The reason I asked was that I have some texts that need translating. They seem to be akin to Latin in their construct; a pre-Latin, if you will. Think you’d like to have a go at it?”

“I can try,” William said hesitantly. “I’m not sure if I’ll be of any help, but I’ll take a look.”

“I’ve been meaning to get to them myself, or give them to Willow who seems to be able to break the most difficult language codes, but I haven’t seen her in a couple of months. Of course, I could send them along through Kennedy when she comes up...”

“I’ll try.”

“Good,” Giles said, smiling.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

5:00PM

“I think it’s time we wrap it up for the day,” Giles said, as he walked to where William was working. For the past couple of hours, while Giles went about the normal Council business, William had sat at a spare desk, studiously trying to decipher a code to the text he’d been given. Every once in a while he asked for some reference on this or that, until finally, after Giles taking him down to the library twice, he’d given him the key, and let him go to do his own research.

William had paled a bit, when he’d asked what sort of language it was supposed to be, and Giles had told him it belonged to a demon tribe that had it’s roots in ancient Phoenicia, but he’d recovered quickly, going on with his work.

“Afraid this is as far as I’ve gotten, and not positive it’s right,” he said, handing Giles the manuscript, with his translation on a notebook next to it. “It was a good thing I’d discovered that other partially deciphered text downstairs. It gave me a good key to start with,” he said, as he handed over what he had finished.

Giles looked it over; both impressed, and he had to admit, a bit put out by how quickly William had worked out how to break the code. Giles smiled broadly to cover his sudden, inexplicably, less than grateful feelings.

“I’d say you’ve done quite well, William,” Giles said, patting him on the back.

“Thanks,” William said, blushing at the praise.

Giles examined his feelings, as he locked up the manuscript and translation in his file cabinet. Was it the fact that he felt like he was being shown up by Spike, whom he’d barely been able to stomach under the best of circumstance; which of course in Sunnydale there never were any best circumstances. Or was it the fact that William was probably as educated as he himself was, if not more so? Could he be fair in his assessment of William’s unique problems and needs, if indeed, these feelings made themselves known, even without provocation?

Stoically, Giles stood up, grabbing his jacket from the clothes tree in the corner.

“What do you say we get out of here?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

8:00PM

Giles was on his hands and knees putting wood into the fireplace. He stopped, noticing William standing in the doorway, holding the journal Giles had strategically placed in his room before he arrived.

“Come in,” he said, rising. Walking to the other side of the room, he went to a small bar, and pulled out a bottle of scotch, and poured a good measure into two glasses.

“Water, or straight?”

“Water,” he answered, as he entered the study.

“Have a seat; anywhere is fine,” Giles said noting William’s hesitancy.

Nervously, William nodded, finally taking a seat on one of the two chairs across from the couch.

Giles walked over to him, handing him a glass. “Cheers,” he said, taking a swallow. William followed suit, only taking a small drink, then placed it on the coaster that had been put on the coffee table in front of him.

“So...”

“So...”

“Have you given any though to where you’d like to start?” Giles asked.

William nodded, fidgeting as he opened up the journal. “I suppose, at the beginning.”

“As good a place as any,” Giles said, mildly. “To start, why don’t you tell me what you remember.”

“I don’t remember anything. I mean, after I was...after I was turned; not until I found myself in The Field Museum.”

Giles nodded. “Well, why don’t you tell me what you remember of your last night, to start out with.”

“My last night,” William repeated. “I went to a party at a friend’s home in Kensington. Actually, it was my brother’s friend more than mine; but I was sometimes included because of him.

“You had a brother?” Giles asked, surprised.

William nodded. “Yes, Henry. He was my half-brother, actually. He was a bit older than I was; eight and a half years older, to be precise.”

“Were you close?”

“No, though I adored him when I was small,” William said, sadly. He took a drink, then continued. “He was almost seven when his father; my mom’s first husband died. My father was his father’s second cousin. I think he always hated me, even when I was a small lad. I think it was because of my father; think he always resented his, rather our mother remarrying my da. I remember him always telling me that my father wasn’t nearly as good or smart as his father had been. They’d had been living in Hyde Park, but him and my mum moved to my father’s home in Hampstead; he always felt that was a step down for my mom and him.

“Hampstead? That’s not exactly a poor area,” Giles said.

“No, it wasn’t. Perfectly middle, upper middle class, which is what we were, but it still didn’t quite have the panache I guess as a Hyde Park address did; not quite as urbane.”

“Go on,” Giles coaxed.

“Henry was everything that I never was; outgoing, athletic, popular with not just the ladies, but the gents as well, whereas I was much more shy by nature, bookish, a closet poet,” he said, with a wry smile. “By the time I was entering university, Henry had already bought his own home, had a good position in the banking industry, and a pretty well-to-do group of friends.”

“What about your own friends from your school or university days?”

“I didn’t have too many. Actually, some of Henry’s friend’s younger brothers and sisters were those I went to school with. That’s why I would occasionally get invited along to their parties. I think my mum had some undo influence with him regarding bringing me along. Probably to do with his trust fund from his father,” he said ruefully.

“So, Henry moved out, and you lived at home with your parents still?”

“Just my mum. My da died when I was twelve. He used to design bridges; he traveled a lot, so he was gone a lot, but I adored him. He was a quiet man, unassuming; know what I mean?”

Giles nodded.

“Very smart, though. He read all the classics; guess that’s why I loved them too; still do, for that matter. He’d come home from being away for...I don’t know months at a time, weeks? Hard to recall for sure when you’re a lad, a day can seem like a week, a week like a month. He’d return home, and my mum and me, we’d be so happy to have him back home for a while. I don’t think he ever came home without bringing us all back some little thing from the area he’d been working in. He’d bring pressed flowers for my mum; complete with the common and scientific names. I remember she had a whole scrapbook with them in it from all his travels. For us boys, he’d bring a rock or shell specimen from the area, and explain to us its geology; think he liked science as much as the classics. Sometimes he’d even bring us a book, or small toy.”

“Your father sounds like he was a good man.”

William nodded. “He was. Know what I used to look forward to the most? It wasn’t the small presents, though they were nice, it was that he would read to me from the classics. I loved hearing his voice. Maybe it was because he was gone so much. I was always amazed that he could pick up the story, right at the exact page he’d last been reading to me. When I was older, I asked him how he did that; admitted to him that I’d looked through the book, trying to find if there was some sort of mark; a bent page corner, a thread, anything that gave him a clue. Know what he said?”

Giles shook his head.

“He told me that it was his way to let me know that he loved me. That he committed to memory the page number, and that every night he would remind himself of that page number, and be reminded of me...”

“Good, and wise, to boot.”

“Yeah, he was. He was in France overseeing the building of a bridge, when there was an accident. He died instantly,” William said softly.

“I’m sorry.”

“Long time ago...”

“Still.”

Lost in his own thoughts, William lifted the glass, his finger tracing the edge.

Giles cleared his throat; “So, you went to a party in Kensington that last night that you’re able to recall. Do you remember anything past the party?”

“I remember leaving the party in rather a hurry,” he said, biting his lower lip. “There was a woman there that I’d fancied for a long time. Don’t know why I thought she might feel the same. Anyway, after getting humiliated in front of her by Henry’s friends, guess I thought I’d go for broke, and tell her how I felt. I really thought, at least hoped, she would...”

“Seems so silly now; can’t imagine what I saw in her. Cecily,” William said, shaking his head when he contrasted what he’d imagined real love to be, to that which he’d shared with Elizabeth. “That was her name. Never said I love you to a woman before that night; at least not out loud.”

“She didn’t reciprocate your feelings, I take it?” Giles asked gently.

“Reciprocate?” William guffawed. “Shot me down right and proper she did; said I was beneath her; probably was.”

William took a drink, remembering with embarrassment how humiliated he’d felt, how she’d brought him to tears, how he’d run out into the night, how he...

Suddenly, he looked up at Giles, his eyes wide.

“You remember something?”

“I think so,” William said, with a small nod. “I left the party in a hurry, and was sort of stumbling down the street, which was quite lively, despite the late hour. I wound up in some sort of shed, I believe. I think...” William stood up, and walked to the other side of the room.

“What is it, William?”

“It’s her. I can see her,” he said, his heart pounding in his chest.

“Who? Cecily?”

William rapidly shook his head, “No, Drusilla.”

Giles got up and walked to where William was standing. “What do you see?”

“I see myself, sitting on some bales of hay, or crates; not sure which, in this shed. Then she’s there, at the door, this dark haired beauty, the likes of which I’d never seen... She asks why I’m crying,” he said, taking a quick look at Giles, glad to not see any scorn in the older man’s face.

“What do you say?”

“I don’t know, but she’s saying things to me, as if she could see inside my very soul, things I’d never admitted to any other living being.”

Giles nodded, “Dru was prescient, it was one of her...gifts, for lack of a better term.”

“And then...oh God!” William said, turning away.

“What’s happening, William?”

“She’s...she’s touching me...intimately. Nobody had ever...oh God. I’m trying to resist her; think I told her my mum was waiting for me,” he said, his voice starting to break.

Giles put his hand on his arm, “It’s alright. Go on.”

“She asks if I want it, and I tell her I do. Then her...her face. I can see it! Her face changes,” he said, swallowing hard, as he backed away from Giles. William walked over to the coffee table, and drained the rest of the glass, coughing as he set it back down.

“I let her, I let her do it to me! I let her bite me! She asked if I wanted it, and I said yes. I said yes!”

“William!” Giles said, walking over and grabbing his arm. “You didn’t ‘let’ her. I doubt you knew what you were agreeing to; you thought it was sex, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. I guess, but when she changed...?”

“She tricked you. It’s what she does; what she did,” Giles amended. “It happened to me.”

“What do you mean? You’re not a vampire! You weren’t one, were you?”

“No, not that,” Giles said, then told him about the incidents leading up to the death of Jenny, and how Dru had pretended to be her in order to get information out of him.

“I knew better, I’m a Watcher for Christ’s sake, but I still believed at that moment that the presence before me, was indeed Jenny. Told her what she wanted to know, too. So don’t think for a moment, that you could’ve resisted her. Not only is she prescient, but she had the gift or trick of being able to hold you in her thrall if you looked into her eyes. If you had tried to resist her, don’t doubt for a moment that she would’ve just taken you by force and left you dead most likely.”

“Would’ve been better that way,” William said, miserably. “Wouldn’t have been...him, then. Wouldn’t have been a monster!”

“You can’t change the past, you can only go on,” Giles said.

William just shook his head, as he thought of the old man whose wife’s death he was most certainly responsible for; hers and how many others?

“As much as this goes against my nature to say this; even Dru was a person at one time. From what I understand, she was driven mad by Angelus before he turned her. He was the type who liked to torture his victims first, mentally, and physically. He killed everyone in her family, one-by-one, and let her be a witness to it, until she was driven mad with despair. At the time, the gift of sight was looked upon by the church as being inherently evil, a sign from the devil. It’s not hard to imagine that Drusilla would’ve felt that the deaths were a punishment from God for her ‘sight,’ confirming to her that she was evil. Nowadays, much of society would consider such ‘seeing,’ a gift for the good. Even police departments will occasionally use someone with that sort of a gift to help solve a crime. None-the-less, Drusilla sought refuge from what she considered her curse in the church. Know what happened the day she was ready to take her vows as a nun?”

“What?” William asked.

“Angelus turned her.”

William shuddered.

“I’m not telling you this so that you can feel sorry for her. I know very well what destruction she could reign down, and you obviously know that first hand.”

William nodded. “I do. She tried to kill me. Again. I dusted her.”

“I know. You don’t know me very well, William. I don’t know that we ever did actually know each other. If you did remember me from Sunnydale, however, you’d know that I’m no fan of vampires, not even the souled variety. Not that there were any others than you and Angel, rather Spike and Angel, that I know of,” he said, wryly. “I don’t know if I ever believed that there was anything other than a demon inside a corpse who has usurped the former human’s memories. I know Buffy would disagree, at least when it came to you. Still, there have been times I’ve had my doubts. One doesn’t have to like vampires, to still feel for the person who used to inhabit that body’s shell.”

“Drusilla,” William said, softly. “Hate the sin, not the sinner? Or in this case, the vampire, not the former person they’d been?”

“Something like that, if you will.”

William let out a big sigh.

“I think we’ve had enough talk for one night, don’t you? We’ll talk again tomorrow if you wish.”

William nodded, rising.

“Good night, Giles.”

“Good night, William,” Giles said, standing up and watching from the doorway as William made his way up the staircase. He walked back over to the bar, and poured himself a double shot, before sitting down at his desk, and taking out his folder on William the Bloody.

END CHAPTER 177